


death has always been my downfall

by wasted_potential_007



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: But I never cry because I don't feel emotions, Cancer, F/F, I almost cried as I wrote this, I'm Sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-19 21:16:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14881334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wasted_potential_007/pseuds/wasted_potential_007
Summary: In which Natasha is diagnosed with cancer, and we all cry as she dies.





	death has always been my downfall

**Author's Note:**

> sorry about the tears in your eyes.

 

“Cancer,” the doctor says, and Natasha takes a deep breath as she sits on the hospital bed in a white gown. “Stomach cancer.”

“Your case is extremely aggressive, and it has spread throughout your body.”

Natasha gathers the courage to look up from her hands, her face stoic and cold. “How long?”

A beat before the doctor answers. “8 months, although you could live up to a year with treatment.” The doctor coughs uncomfortably as he looks everywhere but into Natasha’s eyes. “I could give you some palliative care brochures, the facilities are very-”

“No need.”

Another uncomfortable moment of silence.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Romanoff.”

Natasha stands up after the _click_ of the door closing, locking the door as she quickly changes back into her everyday clothes. She leaves hurriedly, grabbing her coat and bag as she steps into the New York streets outside the hospital, sunglasses and hat on as she walks briskly.

She gets into her car and starts the engine, pulling out of the parking garage and onto the bustling New York streets, her face stoic other than the stray tear running down her face.

\---

“Cancer?” Wanda asks, her voice hurried, and Natasha nods as she stands across the brunette in their bedroom. “Is- is there treatment? Are you going to get treatment?”

Natasha can see that Wanda is panicking, and a part of her just wants to say that it’s a prank, that she isn’t going to be dead and six feet under in around eight months, but she can’t bring herself to lie to her girlfriend because Wanda deserves better than that.

“There’s treatment, but it will probably only buy me another four months. And I’ll be confined to a hospital bed for,” she takes a deep breath before continuing, “the whole time.”

_Until I die._

“And I won’t be _me,_ Wanda.”

“So you’re just giving up?” Wanda asks, her eyes glossy with tears as she stares into Natasha’s eyes and the redhead’s heart breaks, the brunette looks so desperate.

“I’m choosing to keep my life as it is.” Natasha responds, and Wanda stumbles towards her, tears streaming down her face as they embrace, as Natasha wraps her arms around Wanda’s torso.

They hold onto each other for what seems like eternity, because neither of them want to let go.

\---

_7 months._

Natasha tells everyone else when they are all gathered around the TV on movie night, sitting comfortably on the couches.

The first thing she hears is the sound of a spoon being dropped on the floor.

Then, one by one, they all stand up, embrace her, give her the ‘I’m sorry’’s and the pitying looks and Natasha _hates_ it so much because even with seven months to go, she can still kick all of their asses to the wall and back and they’re already treating her like some fragile object.

But then Steve wraps his arms around her torso and says “I’m going to miss you” and she knows it’s the truth, that he really _will_ miss her, and she’s grateful that he accepts it like a fact.

There’s nothing she can do to change the fact that there’s a disease killing her slowly, invading her organs.

She sleeps fitfully that night in Wanda’s embrace, waking up multiple times during the night because she has to puke up the junky pizza they all ate earlier.

When she crawls back into bed for the fourth time that night, she doesn’t go back to sleep, instead she just watches Wanda, watches the little witch’s chest rise up and down, the brunette’s face peaceful and it’s beautiful.

 _She’s_ beautiful, and Natasha hates that she has to leave her.

\---

_4 months._

Natasha doesn’t want anything to change, but even she can see that the cancer is weakening her.

She pukes on a daily basis now even with the changes to her diet, and she finds that she can no longer run a six minute mile.

And she can’t even do a proper sit-up now without shocks of pain rolling through her body, and _that_ fact kills her even more than the cancer.

But Wanda’s there, Wanda’s _always_ there, holding her red hair back as she pukes, helping her get out of bed in the mornings, kissing her on random occasions because the brunette can’t get enough of her.

Natasha finds that she can’t get enough of Wanda either.

And sex- their lovemaking is slow, sorrowful, not hot and fiery like before because Natasha can’t even pin Wanda down on the floor anymore and support herself as she slips her fingers in and out of the brunette.

She doesn’t want to do anything different, wants everything to be like it was before, so she and Wanda don’t go on fancy vacations, don’t blow out their credit cards (even though it’s Tony’s money), don’t do anything out of the ordinary.

But nothing's like it was before, and Natasha is reminded of that with every twist and turn of her stomach.

\---

_2 months._

There’s two months left, and Natasha knows that because of the red X on the calendar getting closer and closer, the exact day that she should die marked with a red sharpie on the ‘December’ section of the calendar.

She takes advantage of every day she has left, jokes around with Steve like nothing has changed, invades Tony’s lab to see what the genius has been working on, walks outside after the rain, the storm, and grips onto Wanda’s hand as they stroll on the path around the compound, kisses her softly against the backdrop of the clear skies and smell of freedom.

It’s getting harder and harder to even walk around though, and she’s been puking more and more, sometimes blood, sometimes what she ate for dinner as Wanda holds her hair back when she leans over the toilet.

And she sleeps less and watches Wanda more during the dead of the night, the moonlight reflecting off of the brunette’s skin.

She’s going to miss this, miss all of it.

\---

_1 month._

There are some days when she can’t physically get out of bed, and Wanda has to call Steve over so that they can lift her onto a couch or into the bathroom so that she can puke again.

But she still finds the strength in her to smile when she talks with the rest of the team, a blanket wrapped around her as she leans back into the couch, Wanda by her side and gripping her hand.

Too soon, it’s the other mark on her calendar, the one on November 22nd, and Natasha celebrates her 33rd birthday sitting next to a cake she can barely eat, with the pitying looks from Sam and Bucky as Tony cuts the cake.

It says “Happy 33rd Birthday, Natasha!” on the top of the white frosting, written in red flowy lettering.

It doesn’t say “Happy last birthday, Natasha!” even though that’s all she can think about as people around her eat the chocolate cake slowly.   

\---

_1 week._

Christmas is coming in a week, and normally everyone would be happy and cheerful, buying gifts, setting up decorations, but this year Natasha’s disease hangs over them like a dark cloud and it ruins the mood and Natasha hates it.

She’s confined to her bed now, and every day she refuses to go to the hospital, let them make her comfortable before she dies because she just wants to be there for Christmas, wants to see the smiles on her teammates faces because she actually _tried_ with the gifts this year.

Natasha wants their last memories of her to be happy, not ones where she’s laying in a hospital bed, too weak to move.

\---

_Christmas Eve._

Wanda forces her to go to the hospital, calls an ambulance because she finds Natasha passed out on the floor of the bathroom, head slumped on the bathtub and there's barely a pulse when Wanda finds it.

She’s checked in at 10:08 pm, laying in the stark-white hospital room, full of beeping machines with Wanda sitting beside her.

“I’m sorry I ruined Christmas,” Natasha croaks out as she grips onto Wanda’s hand.

Wanda’s eyes only tear up in response as she leans over and softly kisses Natasha, conveying her longing and sadness and desperation in one act.

And as Natasha lies there, watches Steve and Bucky and Tony and Sam come rushing into the room, crowding around her, she believes that this isn’t the worst way to die.

She’s surrounded by the people who she somehow found a way to like, people who she’s gone through a lot with, and that isn’t bad at all.

It certainly isn’t how she imagined she was going to go.

(She thought she was going to die was on the battlefield, a long time ago, back when she brought death upon others for a living)

\---

She dies with a seizure, dies hearing Wanda’s screams and cries, dies feeling Wanda’s hand grasping onto hers, dies with the image of tears streaming down the face of the one she loves.

Her last words were "I love you."

\---

“Time of death, 11:59 pm,” the doctor calls out, the nurse pushing the crash cart out of the room, and Wanda sobs as she grasps onto Natasha’s limp hand.

She’s cried before, but never like this, never with huge racking sobs that shook through her body, never with Steve’s arms around her, holding her as she keeps holding onto Natasha’s hand, never wanting to let go.

Natasha never even made it to Christmas.

\---

The funeral is on New Year’s Day, January 1st, and Wanda watches as they lower her grave into the ground.

_“Natalia Alianovna Romanova_

_November 22, 1984 - December 24, 2017”_

The tombstone says no more, only has that inscription and a small carved out rose on the top of it.

Wanda runs her fingers over the carved out rose on marble, and it’s unfair, so _unfair_ that Natasha could be snatched from her just like _that,_ because this was _Natasha, Natasha_ who went through Red Room, who somehow survived an alien invasion, an AI wanting to take over the world, only to die of something so small like _cancer._

Wanda always thought that Natasha was larger than life, that she would outlive all of them, but it’s the Natasha’s body that’s six feet under right now while _she_ is still breathing.

And she realizes that Natasha’s gone. Stolen from her.

Gone forever.


End file.
